Peer discovery and connection management based on context sensitive social networks

ABSTRACT

In a method for automatically filtering communications, a networking request from an initiating party on an initiating communication device is received. The networking request pertains to a request for communication between the initiating communication device and a recipient communication device of a user over a communication channel. A determination is made of whether the communication channel to be used for the communication matches a communication channel for a previous communication between the initiating party and the user. It is automatically determined whether to grant the networking request, based at least in part on the determination of whether the communication channel for the communication matches the communication channel for the previous communication between the initiating party and the user. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

RESERVATION OF COPYRIGHT

This patent document contains information subject to copyrightprotection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimilereproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent, as itappears in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office files or records butotherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

BACKGROUND

Aspects of the present invention relate to networking. Other aspects ofthe present invention relate to network connection management.

Ad-hoc networking refers to the concept of multiple communicationdevices discovering, connecting, and interacting with each other when inproximity. An ad-hoc network may be formed using a scheme of broadcastand response. For example, in an environment of wireless services, ahandheld device may discover other devices that are in a close range bybroadcasting a connection or networking request through a broadcastaddress (or a multicast address). The devices that receive thenetworking request (or receiving devices) need to respond to thenetworking request.

A response issued from a receiving device may be granting the networkingrequest or denying the networking request. In the former case, thereceiving device grants the networking request and agrees to participatein an ad-hoc network. In the latter case, the receiving device deniesthe networking request and refuses to participate in the ad-hoc network.

In responding to a networking request, it may be annoying when usersreceive requests from people they are not acquainted with. It may evencause distress when a user receives frequent networking requests. Moreseverely, a flood of incoming networking requests may disrupt or evendisable a receiving device. In this case, the receiving device may notbe able to respond at all. Another problem associated with this schemeis that it does not scale well when moderately or dense population isinvolved.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention is further described in terms of exemplaryembodiments, which will be described in detail with reference to thedrawings. These embodiments are non-limiting exemplary embodiments, inwhich like reference numerals represent similar parts throughout theseveral views of the drawings, and wherein:

FIG. 1 depicts a mechanism, in which a communication device responds toa networking request via an automatic networking response mechanismaccording to embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 2 depicts the high level internal structure of an automaticnetworking response mechanism in relation to a communication deviceaccording to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 depicts the high level internal structure of a communicationmonitoring mechanism that monitors the communication activities occurredin different exemplary communication channels, according to anembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 depicts the high level internal structure of a dynamic socialnetwork modeling mechanism according to an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 5 shows an exemplary construct of a dynamic social network model;

FIG. 6 depicts the high level internal structure of a networking requestresponding mechanism according to an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 7 is an exemplary flowchart of a process, in which a communicationdevice automatically responds a networking request based on a dynamicsocial network model, according to embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is an exemplary flowchart of a process, in which a communicationmonitoring mechanism monitors communication sessions and collects usefuldata, according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 9 is an exemplary flowchart of a process, in which a dynamic socialnetwork modeling mechanism constructs and maintains a social networkmodel based on monitoring data collected during communication sessions,according to an embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 10 is an exemplary flowchart of a process, in which a networkingrequest responding mechanism determines how to respond a networkingrequest based on a dynamic social network model, according toembodiments of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The invention is described below, with reference to detailedillustrative embodiments. It will be apparent that the invention can beembodied in a wide variety of forms, some of which may be quitedifferent from those of the disclosed embodiments. Consequently, thespecific structural and functional details disclosed herein are merelyrepresentative and do not limit the scope of the invention.

The processing described below may be performed by a properly programmedgeneral-purpose computer alone or in connection with a special purposecomputer. Such processing may be performed by a single platform or by adistributed processing platform. In addition, such processing andfunctionality can be implemented in the form of special purpose hardwareor in the form of software being run by a general-purpose computer. Anydata handled in such processing or created as a result of suchprocessing can be stored in any memory as is conventional in the art. Byway of example, such data may be stored in a temporary memory, such asin the RAM of a given computer system or subsystem. In addition, or inthe alternative, such data may be stored in longer-term storage devices,for example, magnetic disks, rewritable optical disks, and so on. Forpurposes of the disclosure herein, a computer-readable media maycomprise any form of data storage mechanism, including such existingmemory technologies as well as hardware or circuit representations ofsuch structures and of such data.

FIG. 1 depicts a mechanism 100, in which a communication device 120responds a networking or connection request 105 via an automaticnetworking response mechanism 110 according to embodiments of thepresent invention. The communication device 120 represents a genericdevice that is capable of communicating with another communicationdevice to send and receive signals. For example, the communicationdevice 120 may be a hand held device such as a cellular phone or aPersonal Data Assistance (PDA). The communication device 120 alsoincludes any computing device that possesses communication capability.

The communication between the communication device 120 and a differentcommunication device may be initiated by either party and the one thatinitiates the communication is the initiating party. For instance, thecommunication device 120 may initiate the communication by sending anetworking request to one or more devices to request to establishnetwork connections (not shown in FIG. 1). When a different deviceinitiates the communication as an initiating party, the initiating partysends a networking request 105 to the communication device 120 to starta connection. The networking request 105 may be characterized asincluding one or more data transmissions containing data requesting aconnection expressed according to certain standard.

In mechanism 100, an automatic networking response mechanism 110intercepts the networking request 105 and generates a response 135automatically based on a dynamic social network model. The response 135may comprise one or more data transmissions, in response to thenetworking request 105 with one or more data transmissions. A dynamicsocial network model (discussed in more detail later) may describe theuser's social circle based on the communication information collectedwhile the user interacts with various contacts. For example, if a userhas frequent email exchanges with a particular contact, the highfrequency of the interaction may be recorded and used to infer that theuser is close to the contact (either professionally or personally). Whensuch characterization for each contact is available, it may be used todetermine whether to accept a particular networking request from acontact. For instance, the closer the user is to a contact, the morelikely a networking request from the contact is to be accepted.

A social network model may be established with respect to a user,characterizing the social network of the user. It may also beestablished for an entity capable of communications such as a web-basedsoftware robot or an intelligent communication device. When there aremultiple users on a single communication device 120, the social networkof each user may be modeled and applied separately. In this case, theautomatic networking response mechanism 110 may employ an appropriatesocial network model for each user according to, for example, the loginname of a user and make a responding decision based on the currentuser's social network model. It is also possible to model the socialnetwork of a group of users such as a family or a working team. In thiscase, the corresponding social network model represents a single entityrepresenting the group.

FIG. 2 depicts the high level internal structure of the automaticnetworking response mechanism 110 in relation to the communicationdevice 120 according to an embodiment of the present invention. Theautomatic networking response mechanism 110 comprises a communicationmonitoring mechanism 220, a dynamic social network modeling mechanism230 that builds a dynamic model 240 to characterize a user's socialnetwork based on the monitoring data collected by the communicationmonitoring mechanism 220, and a networking request responding mechanism250 that makes a responding decision based on the social network model240.

Communications between two communication devices may occur at differentlayers. Such communication layers may include physical layer,communication stack layer, and application layer. The communicationactivities at different layers may be governed based on differentcriteria. For example, even though a networking request, issued from aninitiating communication device, may be denied at application layer by areceiving device, two devices may still communicate at physical layer(e.g., hand-shake so that the two devices are aware of the existence ofeach other). Different responding mechanisms may be required fordifferent layers. The automatic networking response mechanism 110,depicted in FIG. 2, is responsible to respond a networking request atapplication layer.

The communication monitoring mechanism 220 monitors the communicationactivities between the communication device 120 and other devices.Communication activities may be conducted via different communicationchannels 210 such as email 210 a, chat room 210 b, event scheduling viacalendar 210 c, and file transport protocol (FTP) 210 d. Communicationactivities may also include (not shown in FIG. 2) instant messaging,website interactions based on HTTP, or database based interactions usingtransactions.

The communication monitoring mechanism 220 may collect usefulinformation associated with different aspects of the user'scommunication. It may monitor all communication activities, includinginternal initiated communications (e.g., sending out emails) andexternal party initiated communications (e.g., an instant messagingsession initiated by a party on a different device). For example, it mayobserve and gather the information about the identity of the user'scommunicating party (that communicates with the user), the time and dateof each communication session, the length in time of each communicationsession, or the frequency of the communication with the same party.

The communication monitoring mechanism 220 collects information withrespect to a user. That is, each logic pool of data collectedcorresponds to a single user. When multiple users are involved, thecommunication monitoring mechanism 220 may create multiple pools ofmonitoring data, each of which may be created according to, for example,the login name of the corresponding user. Within each pool of suchcollected data may contain a plurality of monitored communicationsessions. Since in each session, the user may communicate with a singlecontact, the corresponding pool of information, collected during thesession, may be labeled with the identity of the contact. The collectedinformation may include the starting and ending time of each session,the date, the communication channel used (e.g., email, chat, etc.), thelocation of the user during the session, and the statistics such asup-to-date frequency of the communication between the user and thecontact.

The information collected through the communication monitoring mechanism220 can be selectively accessed by the dynamic social network modelingmechanism 230 and used to establish a user's social network model 240.For example, the dynamic social network modeling mechanism 230 mayselect only the information about communications that are initiated byan external device. Such information may include the time and date thenetworking request is made, the response (e.g., accepted or denied) fromthe user, and the data associated with the communication session (e.g.,how long it lasted on what communication media).

Each dynamic social network model built with respect to a single user(or generically a single entity, representing either a user of a groupof users) characterizes the networking pattern of the user. A dynamicsocial network model may contain a list of contacts, each of which maybe individually modeled. For example, each contact may be classifiedinto some category (i.e., family friend, co-worker) and the relationshipbetween the user and the contact may be rated (e.g., close friend, orcasual encounter).

Whenever a networking request 105, sent from an initiating party to auser of the communication device 120, is intercepted, the networkingrequest responding mechanism 250 may first retrieve an appropriatedynamic social network model 240 corresponding to the user. The identityof the initiating party may be identified and used to look up thedynamic social model 240 to verify whether the initiating party is oneof the contacts described in the model. The networking requestresponding mechanism 250 makes a responding decision (either accept orreject the networking request and sends the response 135 back to theinitiating party.

If the networking request is accepted, the communication device 120connects to the initiating party (or contact) via one of itscommunication channels to start a communication session. During thecommunication session, the communication monitoring mechanism 220monitors the session, collecting useful data so that dynamic informationcan be recorded and used to update the existing social network model240.

FIGS. 3-6 show exemplary internal structures of different components ofthe automatic networking response mechanism 110 and how these componentsinteract with each other. FIG. 3 depicts the high level internalstructure of the communication monitoring mechanism 220 that monitorsthe communication activities occurred during communication sessions,according to an embodiment of the present invention. The communicationmonitoring mechanism 220 includes a contact monitor 310, an activitymonitor 320, a context monitor 330, a statistics extractor 340, amonitoring data storage 350, and a indexing mechanism 380.

The contact monitor 310 keeps track of the identity information of theuser's contacts, which may include user names, login names, or IDs ofthe communication device that contacts use to communicate with the user.Such identity information may be used by the indexing mechanism 380 toestablish proper indices between contacts and their correspondingcommunication information. The activity monitor 320 recordscommunication activities during communication sessions and collects theinformation associated with such activities. For example, the activitymonitor 320 may record the communication channel used (e.g., email orchat room).

The context monitor 330 captures the context of communication sessionsunder which a contact connects to the user. Such context information mayinclude who initiated the connection (either the contact or the user) atwhat time and on what day, how long the session lasts, or the user'slocation at the time of the communication (e.g., shopping mall ordoctor's office). While the activity monitor 320 and the context monitor330 may merely log information during communication sessions, suchrecorded information may collectively provide a useful basis forcharacterizing the communication pattern of both the user and betweenthe user and any particular contact. For example, a particular contactoften communicates with the user via email during the day-time for ashort period and chats with the user via on-line chat room at eveningtimes for a much longer period of time

The information collected by the three monitors (310, 320, and 330) maybe stored of the contact information storage 360 in the monitoring datastorage 350 and at the same time may be fed to the statistics extractor340. The information may be properly indexed based on, for example, thecontacts' identity information. With indices, the stored information canbe efficiently retrieved from the monitoring data storage 350.

The statistics extractor 340 computes statistics from the informationcollected during different communication sessions (e.g., contactinformation, communication activities, and context). Such statistics maybe designed to characterize the relationship between the user and thecontacts. For example, communication frequency between the user and eachcontact may be computed to indicate how closely the user is related to acontact. The most preferred communication channel with a particularcontact may also be inferred from the recorded monitoring data. Aparticular contact may connect with the user every Monday morning viaemail during working hours. A different contact usually connects withthe user when the user is in the shopping mall via FTP connection toexchange data. Yet another different contact may conduct only one waycommunication with the user (downloading data to the user).

Statistics may be dynamically updated whenever new monitoringinformation is collected. For example, the frequency of email exchangewith a particular contact may be computed based on the last 50 emailsand it may need to be updated whenever new email communications occur.The computed statistics are stored in the contact statistics storage370, which may also be properly indexed and linked to the correspondingcontact information stored in 360.

FIG. 4 depicts the high level internal structure of the dynamic socialnetwork modeling mechanism 230 according to an embodiment of the presentinvention. The dynamic social network modeling mechanism 230 comprises acontact information retriever 410, a contact statistics retriever 420, acontact category classifier 430, a relationship description generator440, a dynamic social network model generator 450, and a dynamicresponse information receiver 460.

The dynamic social network modeling mechanism 230 creates a socialnetwork model 240 with respect to a (generic) single user based on themonitoring data collected by the communication monitoring mechanism 220.The social network model 240 may be created as a collection of contacts.Each of the contacts may be individually characterized according to thecommunication pattern between the user and the contact. The dynamicsocial network modeling mechanism 230 may also dynamically update thesocial network model 240 over the time based on new informationcollected from on-going communications between the user and his/hercontacts.

To model the social network of a user, the dynamic social networkmodeling mechanism 230 accesses the monitoring data related to variouscontacts from the monitoring data storage 350 (in the communicationmonitoring mechanism 220). The user's identity information may be usedas an index to identify appropriate pool of recorded information. Thecontact information retriever 410 retrieves various types of informationabout the contact, including the identity of the contact (e.g., loginname) or the identity of the communication device that the contact usesto communication with the user.

Using the retrieved contact identity as an index, the contact statisticsretriever 420 further accesses the monitoring data and statisticsassociated with the contact. The information retrieved by both thecontact information retriever 410 and the contact statistics retriever420 provides a basis to model the relationship between the user and thecontact.

According to the exemplary embodiments of the present invention, thecontact category classifier 430 utilizes the retrieved monitoring datato classify the contact. For example, a contact may be classified as theuser's friend or co-worker. The classification may be performed based onsome pre-determined criteria, which may be specified by the user. Forexample, communication channel “chat room” may be specified as strictlyfor friends but not for co-workers. Based on such specified criterionand the monitoring data, which records the communication channel used ineach communication session, the contact category classifier 430 mayclassify those contacts who communicate with the user via chat room asfriends.

The relationship between the user and a contact may be furthercharacterized in terms of how close the relationship is. For example, acontact that communicates with the user on a daily basis may have acloser relationship to the user than a contact that connects with theuser every several months. Based on this criterion and the recordedcommunication frequency, the relationship description generator 440 mayrank the relationship between the user and each contact.

The criteria used for the rank and the ranking scheme itself may bepre-determined either automatically (as default) or manually by theuser. For example, a default ranking scheme may specify that there are atotal of four ranks: not close, pretty close, close, and very close.Each of the ranks may be associated with one or more criteria thatspecify the semantic meaning of the rank. For example, a relationshipmay be considered as “close” only when there are at least onecommunication session via any communication channel each week.

Based on the retrieved information (from 410 and 420), the classifiedcategory information (from 430), and the relationship rankinginformation (from 440), the dynamic social network model generator 450may generate a contact model for each contact, describing therelationship between the user and the contact. The collection of suchmodels corresponds to the social network model 240 of the user. FIG. 5shows an exemplary construct of a dynamic social network model. Adynamic social network model may comprise a set of contact models 505 a,505 b, . . . , 505 c. Each of the contact models may include contactcharacterization 510 and contact relevant note 520. The former maycomprise description of the contact as well as various aspects of therelationship between the user and the underlying contact. The latter mayinclude specific instructions from the user regarding preferred responsewith respect to the contact. For example, the user may specify to send aspecial message to the contact, whenever the contact attempts to reachthe user during a particular period of time (e.g., one month), informingthe contact a particular status about the user (e.g., out of town).

According to the exemplary construct illustrated in FIG. 5, the contactcharacterization 510 comprises identification information 530, categoryclassification 540, contacting context 550, and a relationshipdescription 560. The identification information 530 may specify thelogin name of the contact and the communication device that the contactoften uses to contact the user. The category classification 540 maycontain a label indicating the nature of the relationship between thecontact and the user (e.g., a friend or a business contact or unclear asdefault).

The contacting context 550 may describe the usual context under whichthe contact and the user interact with each other. A usual context maybe understood based on the monitoring data collected from variouscommunication sessions between the user and the contact. Statisticalapproaches may be applied to derive the usual context from suchmonitoring data. For example, statistical distributions of communicationsessions may be computed with respect to both day and time and the meanof the distribution (where most instances occur) may be used as thepreferred communicating time/day between the user and the contact.

While the usual context can be inferred statistically from monitoringdata, some confidence test may be applied to make sure that the derivedusual context statistically makes sense and represents the communicationpattern between the user and the contact. For example, if the confidencetest fails with respect to a computed preferred day/time, a null valuemay be assigned to the preferred day/time in the model to indicate thatthere is no obvious pattern detected with respect to preferredcommunicating day/time.

In FIG. 5, the usual context 550 includes day/time 550 a, channel 550 b,location 550 c (of the user), and frequency 550 d. Such collectiveinformation characterizes the communication habit between the user andthe contact and may be utilized in making a response decision. Forexample, if the automatic networking response mechanism 110 intercepts anetworking request from a contact at a time of a day that is verydifferent from the usual day/time specified in the contact model, theautomatic networking response mechanism 110 may either decide to rejectthe request or prompt the user to make a decision.

Referring again to FIG. 4, the dynamic social network modeling mechanism230 may also update an existing social network model based on newinformation. For example, the frequency 550 d associated with a contactmay need to be updated whenever a new communication session isestablished between the contact and the user. In this case, the dynamicresponse information receiver 460 receives the information about a newcommunication session, including with which contact the user iscommunicating, and the data relevant to the communication session suchas the time, date, communication channel, and the location of the user.The dynamic response information receiver 460 passes the receivedinformation to the dynamic social network model generator 450 that maythen retrieve corresponding existing social network model and update themodel based on the new information.

FIG. 6 depicts the high level internal structure of the automaticresponse mechanism 250 in relation to the dynamic social network model240 and the dynamic social network modeling mechanism 230, according toan embodiment of the present invention. The automatic response mechanism250 generates a response 135 to a networking request 105 based on adynamic social network model 240 and then triggers the dynamic socialnetwork modeling mechanism 230 to update the existing social networkmodel based on the response.

The automatic response mechanism 250 comprises a networking requestreceiver 610, an identifying mechanism 620 to identify the contact whoissues the request, a contact look-up mechanism 630, a context matchingmechanism 640, a social network sensitive responding mechanism 650, acalendar 660, a user interaction mechanism 670, and a dynamic responseinformation sender 680. The networking request receiver 610 intercepts anetworking request 105. Such a networking request may be sent wirelesslyto a user to request a connection. The request 105 may also be sent in abroadcast (or multicast) fashion to request all the recipients torespond to form an ad hoc network.

Upon receiving the networking request 105, the identifying mechanism 620identifies both the sender of the request (the initiating party) and thedesignated recipient (a user of the underlying communication device).The resulted identification information is then fed to the contactlook-up mechanism 630 that examines whether the initiating party is oneof the contacts of the user. Specifically, the contact look-up mechanism630 may use the identity of the user to retrieve an appropriate socialnetwork model and then determine whether the initiating party is one ofthe contacts modeled in the retrieved social network model.

If the initiating party is identified as one of the contacts of theuser, the context matching mechanism 640 may further verify whether thecurrent context under which the networking request is issued isconsistent with the preferred context characterized in the retrievedsocial network model. For example, if the preferred day/time is duringworking hours (e.g., 8:00 am to 7:00 pm) on a working day (e.g., Mondaythrough Friday), a networking request sent on a weekend day may beconsidered as a mismatch. If the contact normally connects to the user afew time a month and a previous communication session with the contactwas just a few hours before (i.e., current communication frequency ismuch higher than usual), the current frequency may be considered asinconsistent with the model.

Based on the look-up results and the context matching results, thesocial network sensitive responding mechanism 650 generates a response135. The decision about the response 135 may be reached by looking up acalendar 660 that may record scheduled activities of the user. Forexample, if there is an engagement scheduled in the next few minutes forthe user, the networking request may be refused. The social networksensitive responding mechanism 650 may also look up user's socialnetwork model to see whether there is a special note about theinitiating party. For example, the user may insert a note in the contactmodel to instruct to refuse any networking request from this contact.

When the current context does not match the preferred context, thesocial network sensitive responding mechanism 650 may decide to consultwith the user, via the user interaction mechanism 670, in terms ofwhether the networking request should be accepted. The user interactionmechanism 670 may prompt the user, informing the incoming networkingrequest as well as other relevant information such as the identity ofthe contact who makes the request and the requested communicationchannel. The user interaction mechanism 670 acquires the user's decisionon whether to accept the request and send it to the social networksensitive responding mechanism 650.

Based on different types of information (e.g., the networking request,the social network model, the calendar, and the user), the socialnetwork sensitive responding mechanism 650 generates the response 135and sends it to the requester. At the same time, information relevant tothe response 135 (e.g., day, time, starting time, contact, communicationchannel, etc.) is sent to the dynamic social network modeling mechanismvia the dynamic response information sender 680 to trigger updating theexisting social network model of the user. In this way, the dynamics ofthe communication between the user and the contact can be incorporatedinto the social network model.

FIG. 7 is an exemplary flowchart of a process, in which a communicationdevice automatically responds to a networking request via an automaticnetworking response mechanism based on a dynamic social network model,according to embodiments of the present invention. Communicationsbetween a user of the communication device 120 and his/her contacts aremonitored at act 710 to collect monitoring data. Based on the monitoringdata, a social network model is generated at act 720. A networkingrequest is received at act 730. The identities of both the initiatingparty that sends the request and the recipient are identified at act740. The identity of the recipient (or the user) is used to retrieve anappropriate social network model. To determine a response, the automaticnetworking response mechanism 110 consults, at act 750, the socialnetwork model 240 to verify whether the initiating party is one of theuser's contacts and whether the context under which the networkingrequest is issued is consistent with the model. Finally, the automaticnetworking response mechanism 110 responds, at act 760, the networkingrequest based on the consultation result.

FIG. 8 is an exemplary flowchart of a process, in which thecommunication monitoring mechanism 220 monitors communication sessionsto collect useful monitoring data, according to an embodiment of thepresent invention. During a communication session between a user and acontact, communication activities are observed at act 820. Contextinformation related to the communication session is extracted at act830. Various relevant statistics are further computed at act 840. Suchgathered information is then stored, at act 850, in the monitoring datastorage 350. To facilitate efficient retrieval of stored monitoringdata, appropriate indices are constructed at act 860.

FIG. 9 is an exemplary flowchart of a process, in which the dynamicsocial network modeling mechanism 230 establishes and maintains adynamic social network model based on monitoring data collected duringuser's communication sessions, according to an embodiment of the presentinvention. To construct a social network model for a user, for each ofthe user's contacts, contact information is first retrieved at act 910.Relevant statistics are further retrieved at act 920. Based on theretrieved information, the dynamic social network modeling mechanism 230classifies, at act 930, the contact into one of a plurality ofcategories, specifying the nature of the relationship between thecontact and the user. In addition, a relationship description isgenerated, at act 940, that specifies the closeness of the relationshipbetween the user and the contact.

Using the monitoring data, the category information, and therelationship description, the dynamic social network modeling mechanism230 builds, at act 945, a contact model. The acts between 910 and 945are repeated for each of the user's contacts. When contact models arebuilt for all the contacts, determined at act 950, the dynamic socialnetwork modeling mechanism 230 models, at act 960, the user's overallsocial network. Once the dynamic social network model for the user iscreated, it is dynamically maintained and updated. Whenever newinformation is received, determined at act 970, the correspondingdynamic social network model is updated at act 980.

FIG. 10 is an exemplary flowchart of a process, in which the networkingrequest responding mechanism 250 automatically responds to a networkingrequest based on a dynamic social network model, according toembodiments of the present invention. A networking request is receivedat act 1010. The identities of both the initiating party and the requestrecipient are identified at act 1020. Based on the identity of therecipient (user), an appropriate social network model is retrieved. Thenetworking request responding mechanism 250 then consults, at act 1030,with the social network model with respect to the identity of theinitiating party.

If the initiating party is identified as one of the user's contacts,determined at act 1035, the current context under which the contactissues the networking request is compared with the preferred contextspecified in the social network model to see whether they areconsistent. If the initiating party is not one of the user's contacts,the networking request responding mechanism 250 denies, at act 1040, thenetworking request.

If the current context matches with the preferred context, determined atact 1045, the networking request responding mechanism 250 grants, at act1060, the networking request. If the current context does not match thepreferred context, the networking request responding mechanism 250consults, at act 1040, with the user. If the user allows the requestedconnection, determined at act 1055, the networking request respondingmechanism 250 grants the networking request. If the user refuses therequested connection, the networking request responding mechanism 250denies, at act 1080, the networking request. In both cases (grant ordeny the networking request), the networking request respondingmechanism 250 generates, at act 1070, information related to theresponse. Such information is then sent, at act 1090, to the dynamicsocial network modeling mechanism 230 to trigger a dynamic update on therelevant social network model.

While the invention has been described with reference to the certainillustrated embodiments, the words that have been used herein are wordsof description, rather than words of limitation. Changes may be made,within the purview of the appended claims, without departing from thescope and spirit of the invention in its aspects. Although the inventionhas been described herein with reference to particular structures, acts,and materials, the invention is not to be limited to the particularsdisclosed, but rather extends to all equivalent structures, acts, and,materials, such as are within the scope of the appended claims.

1-30. (canceled)
 31. An apparatus for automatically filteringcommunications, the apparatus comprising: a tangible, computer-readablemedium; and instructions in the medium which, when executed, performoperations comprising: receiving a networking request from an initiatingparty on an initiating communication device, wherein the networkingrequest pertains to a request for communication between the initiatingcommunication device and a recipient communication device of a user overa communication channel; determining whether the communication channelto be used for the communication matches a communication channel for aprevious communication between the initiating party and the user; andautomatically determining whether to grant the networking request, basedat least in part on the determination of whether the communicationchannel for the communication matches the communication channel for theprevious communication between the initiating party and the user.
 32. Anapparatus according to claim 31, wherein the operations comprise: inresponse to receiving the networking request from the initiating party,automatically determining whether the initiating party is alreadyrecognized as a contact of the user; and automatically denying thenetworking request in response to a determination that the initiatingparty is not a known contact of the user.
 33. An apparatus according toclaim 31, wherein the communication request pertains to a request tocreate a communication session to use a communication channel from thegroup consisting of: instant messaging; and a chat room.
 34. Anapparatus according to claim 31, wherein the operations furthercomprise: in response to detecting that the user has communicated with acontact over a particular communication channel, automatically updatinga dynamic social network model with data to identify the particularcommunication channel used.
 35. An apparatus according to claim 31,wherein the operations comprise: in response to receiving the networkingrequest from the initiating party, automatically determining whether theinitiating party is already recognized as a contact of the user; anddetermining whether to grant the networking request based on (a) thedetermination of whether the initiating party is already recognized as acontact of the user and (b) the determination of whether thecommunication channel for the networking request matches thecommunication channel for the previous communication between theinitiating party and the user.
 36. An apparatus according to claim 35,wherein the operations further comprise: automatically granting thenetworking request in response to determining that (a) the initiatingparty is already recognized as a contact of the user and (b) thecommunication channel for the networking request matches thecommunication channel for the previous communication between theinitiating party and the user.
 37. An apparatus according to claim 36,wherein the operations further comprise, in response to a determinationnot to grant the networking request, automatically performing anoperation from the group consisting of: denying the request; andprompting the user to select whether the networking request should begranted.
 38. An apparatus according to claim 31, wherein the operationscomprise: in response to detecting that the user has communicated with acontact over a particular communication channel, automatically updatinga dynamic social network model with data to identify the particularcommunication channel used; and in response to receiving the networkingrequest from the initiating party, automatically determining whether thedynamic social network model recognizes the initiating party as a knowncontact of the user; and wherein the determination of whether to grantthe networking request is based at least in part on (a) thedetermination of whether the dynamic social network model recognizes theinitiating party as a known contact of the user and (b) thedetermination of whether the communication channel for the networkingrequest matches the communication channel for the previous communicationbetween the initiating party and the user.
 39. An apparatus according toclaim 38, wherein the operations further comprise: automaticallygenerating new context information, in response to granting of thenetworking request; and automatically causing a dynamic social networkmodel to be updated with the new context information.
 40. An apparatusaccording to claim 31, wherein the operations further comprise: updatingthe dynamic social network model with relationship data to classify atleast one contact into one of three or more relationship categories,wherein each relationship category corresponds to a different degree ofcloseness between the user and the contact.
 41. A processing system toautomatically filter communications, the processing system comprising: anetworking request receiver to receive a networking request from aninitiating party on an initiating communication device, wherein thenetworking request pertains to a request for communication between theinitiating communication device and a recipient communication device ofa user over a communication channel; a context matching mechanism todetermine whether the communication channel to be used for thecommunication matches a communication channel for a previouscommunication between the initiating party and the user; and a socialnetwork sensitive responding mechanism to automatically determinewhether to grant the networking request, based at least in part on thedetermination of whether the communication channel for the communicationmatches the communication channel for the previous communication betweenthe initiating party and the user.
 42. A processing system according toclaim 41, further comprising: an automatic response mechanism responsiveto the social network sensitive responding mechanism, the automaticresponse mechanism to automatically deny the networking request, inresponse to a determination that the initiating party is not a knowncontact of the user.
 43. A processing system according to claim 41,wherein the communication request pertains to a request to create acommunication session to use a communication channel from the groupconsisting of: instant messaging; and a chat room.
 44. A processingsystem according to claim 41, further comprising: a dynamic socialnetwork modeling mechanism to automatically update a dynamic socialnetwork model with new context information, in response to granting ofthe networking request.
 45. A processing system according to claim 41,further comprising: a dynamic social network modeling mechanism toautomatically generate new context information for the dynamic socialnetwork model, in response to detecting that the user has communicatedwith a contact over a particular communication channel, wherein the newcontext information comprises data to identify the particularcommunication channel associated with the contact.
 46. A method forautomatically filtering communications, the method comprising: receivinga networking request from an initiating party on an initiatingcommunication device, wherein the networking request pertains to arequest for communication between the initiating communication deviceand a recipient communication device of a user over a communicationchannel; determining whether the communication channel to be used forthe communication matches a communication channel for a previouscommunication between the initiating party and the user; andautomatically determining whether to grant the networking request, basedat least in part on the determination of whether the communicationchannel for the communication matches the communication channel for theprevious communication between the initiating party and the user.
 47. Amethod according to claim 46, comprising: in response to receiving thenetworking request from the initiating party, automatically determiningwhether the initiating party is already recognized as a contact of theuser; and automatically denying the networking request in response to adetermination that the initiating party is not a known contact of theuser.
 48. A method according to claim 46, further comprising: inresponse to detecting that the user has communicated with a contact overa particular communication channel, automatically updating a dynamicsocial network model with data to identify the particular communicationchannel used.
 49. A method according to claim 46, comprising:automatically granting the networking request in response to determiningthat (a) the initiating party is already recognized as a contact of theuser and (b) the communication channel for the networking requestmatches the communication channel for the previous communication betweenthe initiating party and the user.
 50. A method according to claim 46,further comprising: in response to a determination not to grant thenetworking request, automatically performing an operation from the groupconsisting of: denying the request; and prompting the user to selectwhether the networking request should be granted.